Post-Traumatic Stress’s Surprisingly Positive Flip Sid
Sgt. Jeffrey Beltran pulled a heavily creased Post-it note from the pocket of his fatigues, unfolded it and looked over a list he jotted down earlier that day: pick up an order of beef lo mein, take his dress uniform to work (jacket, pants and boots), do schoolwork. Beltran’s Army-issue organizer is also filled with these reminders, and he checks them every so often to jog his memory — folding and unfolding them throughout the day. Beltran’s life is filled with sticky notes because his short-term memory is no longer reliable, a result of what the Army calls a mild traumatic brain injury that he suffered in an I.E.D. attack in Iraq in 2005.
“I have pictures,” said Beltran, who is 44, as he pulled a worn Ziploc bag from his backpack and removed a half a dozen photographs. He began laying the images on his desk. “We were turning our vehicle around when we got hit.”
The photos, taken right after the explosion, show a plowed field next to a road. A few palm trees frame the horizon. In the foreground there is a deep crater. About 20 feet away, the front half of a Humvee is turned upside down. The back half is gone — parts were later discovered hundreds of feet away. When the bomb exploded, Beltran was launched into the air and landed between the blast hole and the Humvee. When he came to, he couldn’t stand up. “I knew something was wrong,” he said. “I felt swelling inside my legs. I was hyperventilating in the heat. The dirt was starting to settle down. I called out to my guys. I couldn’t see them.”
The blast broke Beltran’s knee and leg, fractured his lower spine and buried shrapnel in his thigh; the violent jolt caused his brain injury. He suffered so many wounds that he had to pause in the retelling to make sure he hadn’t left anything out. He underwent 14 operations over the next year. “I was dealing with post-traumatic stress, anger, all the emotions, the ups and downs, the physical, emotional, psychological pain,” he told me. “I was really angry. I wanted to get healed and get back into the fight.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/post-traumatic-stresss-surprisingly-positive-flip-side.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120325
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And on those slow boats going home, the remaining survivors had a chance to process their experience and debrief among themselves.
It was precisely because of the high number of WWII battlefield psychiatric casualties that the Pentagon implemented new policies to address the problem--the point system in the Korean War and the DEROS system in Vietnam.
They got better results in Korea, and much better results in Vietnam, and military mental health specialists were patting themselves on the back--until an explosion of POST-traumatic symptoms began manifesting in VN vets.
It turned out that the VN DEROS policy--which guaranteed that troops would go home after 12 months (13 months for Marines) left many with pronounced feelings of guilt for leaving their buddies behind when they left. And many were discharged immediately when they returned, thrust back into civilian society within 36 hours of serving in combat--which posed an incredibly huge 'readjustment' challenge.
It wasn't until post-traumatic issues in VN vets were recognized that the same issues in WWII and Korean War vets began to get even a little attention.
But to dirctly address what you posted--I'd say that any combat vet or vet who has been exposed to combat and the horrors of war comes back "with a depth of feeling for their fellow man." When I speak to HS and college classes about VN I tell them, "You didn't have to go to Vietnam to find your compassion--but it sure as hell could add a lot of depth."
At a VA conference on PTSD in Washington, D.C. I heard a psychologist say that you have to be a pretty good person to be affected (traumatized) by your war experience. Because you CARE, and those who don't care aren't affected at all.
The 'Greatest Generation' IS great for what they did. So are the generations that followed, that served, and sacrificed--and continue to sacrifice long after their service.
For more than 60 I knew and lost, including my friends who returned from war safely--and chose to end their own lives...
